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Our take: PSU board needs changes

Updated:
11/16/2012 07:45:52 AM EST

Auditor General Jack Wagner (File)

Of all of the fallout from the Jerry Sandusky scandal - and there's been enough to cause nuclear winter several times over - the one aspect of the case that doesn't seem to attract enough attention is the effort to reform how Penn State governs itself.

To be sure, nobody knows whether any changes to how the board of trustees operates would have unearthed the scandal sooner and prevented some of the horrible abuse that occurred at the university. And nobody can say with certainty that the board would have acted sooner had it not served as a rubber-stamp for now-indicted university president Graham Spanier.

Those things can be debated - have been and will be for years to come - but one thing is clear: The way Penn State governs itself has to change, and it has to change dramatically.

The auditor general has proposed removing the university president and the governor as members of the board. He has also advocated reducing the size of the 32-member board, imposing term limits of trustees and restricting university employees from serving on the board.

These are all good reforms. Mr. Wagner has also advocated extending the state's Right-to-Know Law and the Public Official and Ethics Act to cover the university.

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It's not merely an oversight that those laws do not apply to the state's largest publicly supported university; it's downright bizarre.

And despite promises by the university to change how it operates, reform has been slow.

"Real and substantive reform of the governance structure is still not presently occurring," Mr. Wagner said.

While it is difficult for a massive institution to change courses - it's akin to turning an aircraft carrier around - you would think that Penn State would have ample motivation to move quickly and remove obstacles to changing its culture.

Because this is what these reforms are about - changing the culture of the administration at Penn State.

Penn State has long been secretive and has a well-earned reputation for withholding information that, as an institution supported by taxpayers, should be readily available to the public. For instance, it took a lawsuit to get the university to divulge the salary of the late Joe Paterno - technically classified as a state employee.

The board of trustees, rather than being an independent governing body, has been deferential to the university president. As the evidence unearthed by the Freeh report alleged, Mr. Spanier was aware of the allegations against Mr. Sandusky, but did not inform the board so it could take action.

The board has to turn the tables and make it clear that the president works at their pleasure, not the other way around.

And that the governor is a member of the board seems not just antiquated, but rife with potential conflicts of interest. In the Sandusky case, Gov. Tom Corbett was well aware of the allegations as they were being investigated, but could not tell the board about them - bound by rules intended to protect the integrity of the investigation. That information, though, could have prompted the board to take steps that might have derailed the alleged cover-up of the scandal by top administrators.

These changes are not technical. Nor are they minor. They are needed to make the operation of the university more transparent and to make its administrators more accountable to both the board of trustees and the public.

They come too late to prevent the damage to the university's reputation caused by the Sandusky scandal. But they could contribute significantly to repairing it.